CFP: Circular Flows (grad) (Germany) (8/31/06; 11/3/06-11/5/06)

7th Graduate Conference in Erlangen
Deadline: August 31st 2006
November 3rd - 5th 2006
Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg
Kochstr. 4, 91054 Erlangen
Germany

Circular-Flows

--
Capillaries of World Culture
The 7th graduate conference "circular flows" takes up the theme of the 6th 
conference which was held under the title "border//crossings". Two years 
ago, in 2004, borders and border crossing was discussed, while this 
year's conference will focus on the topics of mobility and motility as 
constituents of new trans-cultural spaces. The crossing of traditional 
borders is considered as a necessary prerequisite of the emergence 
of "Circular Flows", but the main attention is drawn towards the genesis, 
modification and stabilisation of knowledge and culture in the course of 
border transgression - from "roots" to "routes" as Paul Gilroy put it. 
The conference deals both with questions of "blurring boundaries" on the 
level of international organisations, with discourses of 
new "transnational spaces", of new "ethno-, ideo- or mediascapes" and 
with discussions about "glocalization", "hybridisation" and "melange".
Processuality is the common ground of all these aspects. Their stability - 
as suggested by the title of the conference - stems from their 
circularity or recursivity in time.
The conference addresses the debate about world culture und world society 
beyond global finance markets and geopolitics. Artefacts, bodies, people, 
social relations, institutions, figures, media, facts and cultures "on 
the move" are to be questioned about their bottom-up consequences for and 
in line with world culture.
This main issue can be specified in three dimensions: 
1) Flows, transfer, blending and recursivity (de-constructions of global 
space)
Circuits of movement, perpetual streams of communication, flows of 
symbols, the mechanisms of transfer and diffusion are elements and 
expressions of "circular flows". Physical movement, the "movement" of 
meaning and media and the alteration of perspectives and world views do 
not necessarily coincide. They rather overlap substitute or interchange 
amongst each other and into the direction of their social and cultural 
environments. We can therefore ask for the terms of their recursivity as 
well as for their (de-)constructive effects in relationship to other both 
mobile and immobile life-forms.
2) Reflexivity, emergence of culture and of spaces (cos-mobility)
The second direction focuses space in a geographical and in a figurative 
sense: Space as an issue of discourse as well as the construction of its 
symbolic structure by actors. Being on the move involves the crossing 
of "traditional-modern" social spaces and may lead to the reflexive 
formation of symbolic structures of aesthetics, styles and self 
representations. These representations have a spatial dimension and touch 
questions of "home" and "identity". One could think of post-modern 
constellations of symbols, the intermingling of cultural codes etc. and 
of questions of cosmobility.
3) Regulation, inclusion und exclusion (new borderlines)
>From a perspective of circularity the meaning of borders/frontiers becomes 
multidimensional: in terms of borders and the crossing of frontiers as a 
prerequisite for the constitution of new spaces and flows, in terms of 
insecure existence next or "on" borders and in terms of transcultural or 
global demarcations in the line of recursive stabilization of new spaces 
(exclusion/inclusion). We want to lay emphasis on the analysis of 
mechanisms of regulation, regimes and stabilization. One could think of 
studies which deal with the suppression of circular flows or with 
questions of unequal distribution of opportunity structures and the 
variance of abilities to capitalize on new spaces and their symbolic 
representation. Eventually, this topic touches questions of the 
conditioning of communication and movement by global regimes of money and 
power.
We would like to invite an international and interdisciplinary audience to 
the three-day conference. Graduates and postgraduates from philosophy, 
history, languages and literatures, media studies, social sciences etc. 
should post proposals to the issue of "circular flows", both theoretical 
work or concepts and empirical or literature studies. 
Conference languages will be English and German. The publication of an 
anthology is planned. Please submit your proposal using the online 
registration form on this webpage (www.gradnet.de) until August, 31st . 
The conference fee will presumably be € 20,- (to be paid on arrival). 
Please contact us if you have any questions.
Office:
Department of Sociology
FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg
D-91054 Erlangen
Germany
0049-9131-8522092 (or: 0049-9131-8522792)
graconinfo_at_arno.franken.de
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